


To Keep Watch In Winter

by straightforwardly



Category: Stand Still Stay Silent
Genre: Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, But Not Actually City of Hunger, F/F, First Meetings, Inspired By City of Hunger, Language Barrier
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-06
Updated: 2017-09-06
Packaged: 2018-12-24 13:59:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12014238
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/straightforwardly/pseuds/straightforwardly
Summary: A storm’s coming in. And Tuuri meets a stranger.





	To Keep Watch In Winter

**Author's Note:**

> Like the tags say, this was inspired by some of my City of Hunger-related musings, though I don't actually consider it City of Hunger fic. I actually was originally writing an Emil/Lalli fic with this setting, but I didn't get more than two sentences into it before I got distracted with thinking about what Sigrun and Tuuri were doing in the meanwhile, and then this came spilling out instead.

A storm was rolling in, and a big one at that. Tuuri could taste it, icy and sharp in the air, though she couldn’t see it yet from where she laid. That was probably a good thing; it meant she had enough time to get back to the village before it really set in.

Still, she sighed as she sat up from her spot on top of the hulking rock she’d chosen as her roost. She _hated_ storm season, and wasn’t ready to give up on the cold-fresh air for days or maybe weeks, depending on the size of the storm, of being trapped between dark walls. 

The sigh quickly turned into a groan as her back decided to remind her why people generally didn’t lay down on bare stone for hours on end. She got to her feet, shaking out limbs that had seemed contented enough before she’d moved, then peered into the horizon, shading her eyes against the glare of the snow with one of her hands. 

There. She didn’t have Lalli’s sharp eyes, but she didn’t need them to see the deep gray streak amassing on the distant horizon, just beneath the lowering sun. Definitely a large one, if she had any storm-sense at all.

Tuuri slumped with disappointment, but nonetheless began looking for the footholds she’d used to climb up on the rock. She could sulk when she got back home; it’d be really stupid if she froze to death just because she’d wallowed too long. 

She found them on the opposite side of the rock: narrow indentations chopped too regularly into the stone for it to have been natural. When she’d first found them, years ago now, she’d figured that some distant ancestor had done it— certainly she’d never seen anyone else but her ever use them. She dropped to her hands and knees with another sigh, preparing to climb down.

Then her eyes caught a glimpse of red.

Tuuri blinked, then squinted. The red blotch in the distance didn’t vanish, not even after she rubbed her eyes to dispel any ice-illusions. It bobbed along the canyon paths coming from the east, heading vaguely in her direction. 

A traveller, maybe. They weren’t close enough for Tuuri to see any details beyond that bright red, but no animals had fur or hide that shade. Humans didn’t either, but they did have clothes. Maybe it was a hat? A cloak? 

Which told Tuuri that either they were horribly rich (and stupid enough to flaunt it) or very wasteful. Red dye was _expensive_. They had to trade for it, and the plant-stuff needed came from far away. Tuuri had a belt in that color she’d been gifted by her mother (who’d been gifted it by her mother, and her by her mother—) on her coming of age and a pair of gloves which she’d saved years for, and both she wore only on feast days. 

Tuuri started climbing down. Rich, stupid, or wasteful, it didn’t matter— they were clearly a stranger, and would need shelter from the coming storm just as much as she did. She was the one who found them, so it was her duty to give guest-right. The gods didn’t look kindly on those who abandoned travellers. 

(Invaders were a different story. But she thought that even a stupid person wouldn’t try to invade on the cusp of a storm, alone and uncamouflaged.)

By the time Tuuri reached the ground, the red smudge had resolved itself into a distinctly human shape. Definitely a hat or a hood, as the rest of the stranger’s outfit blended in with the snow and the shadows cast by the canyon’s walls. 

Tuuri started waving to catch their attention. “Hey! Over here!”

The stranger stopped, and she saw them turning their head, searching until they spotted her. They started heading towards her, and Tuuri kept waving, mostly to make sure that they didn’t lose sight of her in the midst of the greys and whites of the landscape around them. 

As the stranger drew near, Tuuri swiftly realized four things.

One, the stranger was a woman.

Two, she was tall, taller than almost anyone Tuuri could think of— maybe even taller than her grandma. 

Three, she was _gorgeous_. 

And—

“That’s your _hair_!” Tuuri blurted out, louder than she meant to. Her hands flew up to cover her mouth. “Oh, sorry! I didn’t mean to be rude— it’s just that I’ve never seen red hair before! Not that that’s a bad thing, that it’s red. It’s very pretty! Oh, but you probably hear that all the time, don’t you. And— oh. Wow.”

It was at that point that Tuuri realized that the other woman was covered in blood. 

Not her own blood, except maybe for the thin line running sharply down her cheek. The rest of it was greenish in color, and had the distinct brackish smell of worm blood. 

Which suggested that the woman had recently injured or maybe even killed a worm. That was… impressive. Worms had thick hides, and were huge and quick to strike. Only the best of hunters could take them on, and even then it was dangerous. Tuuri had always been taught to run and hide if she ever spotted one. 

“...Wow,” she repeated, staring. Then she remembered herself, and, flushing, jerked her head up to look the woman in the face, though she had to crane her neck to do so.“Ah, I should introduce myself, shouldn’t I? I’m Tuuri of the Hotakainen clan. You’re welcome to shelter with us until the storm passes… by…?”

She trailed off as she realized that the woman was giving her an odd look, one she couldn’t decipher. Had she said something wrong? 

Then the woman spoke, and Tuuri’s eyes went wide. 

She’d been fascinated by the tales of traders and strangers her entire life. Her grandma being head of the clan meant that Tuuri had been sitting in on trade meetings since she was barely more than a girl, and had been spying in on them for even longer. She knew every dialect within hundreds of miles, and had even learned the language of the strange dark-haired traders from the far southwest.

What the woman spoke sounded like none of those. In fact, it sounded like nothing Tuuri had ever heard. 

She took another look at the woman, this time taking in the details of her clothing. The bits of metal at her shoulders, wrists, and waist; the thick rod, too wide to be a knife, hanging from her hip; the lack of clasps on her cloak; the strange sleek material of her boots, unlike any animal hide Tuuri had ever seen. And that vibrant hair…

East. The woman had been walking along the canyon paths from the east. Tuuri remembered, now, the rumors she’d heard from the furthest reaches, far, far beyond the edges of her clan’s lands, of a strange people coming from nowhere and building what looked like a village, except larger than any village ever seen before. And they said, too, that the strange people had built it up from a flat plain, using strange materials brought from somewhere no one knew. 

She’d first heard that they’d come from somewhere across the sea, but the latest whispers, the ones that even her grandma had shaken her head at, claimed that they came from the _skies_. 

And now one of them was (probably) standing right before her. 

The things Tuuri could learn from her, once she figured out her language, and the stories she could tell—

Tuuri couldn’t hold back a delighted squeal. She took back every ounce of her earlier disappointment. The storm could rage for months on end for all she cared; it wasn’t going to be dull at all.

**Author's Note:**

> I... might continue this? It's not entirely decided, as this was a very much spur of the moment writing project, but I'd at least like to write the Emil/Lalli side of things that I referred to in my opening notes, and I do have some worldbuilding thoughts that might be fun to play with, so. If I do decide to turn this into a full-fledged fic, it'd be both Sigrun/Tuuri and Emil/Lalli.


End file.
